Taken from Tapeworm's excellent hacking how-to guide. The entire book is published in lower-case it seems, with plenty of l33t-sp3ak thrown in:

the ten laws of geek

so, you want to be an elite hacker, huh? why not? geeks are a very interesting specimen. the following are what i believe to be ten of the most popular geek laws, un-written laws, mind you (until now).

i. thou shalt not syn (synchronize), only ack (acknowledge).

geeks are typically known as quiet, reserved people. therefore the first step to becoming a geek is to stfu (shut the f--- up) and start paying attention.

ii. thou shalt have seen the movie "hackers" and knoweth it well.

i have never met a geek in my life that hasn't seen this movie. it's quite an exaggeration on real life, but is a classic none the less. it is not uncommon to hear quotes from this movie in everyday geek conversation.

discriminating against anything other than someone's annoying personality is simply ignorant. the band metallica is known amongst geeks for their dispute against napster, a file sharing program allowing you to download and freely share music. as far as i am concerned, music was meant to be free. i can understand having people pay to be entertained at a live concert or for merchandise, but people have always been sharing music (they always will) and trying to stop them now just because "everyone" is doing it is pretty arrogant. i don't care how passionate you are, it's not a job; it is a form of expression. i'm sure there are a lot of musicians/radio stations out there who will disagree with me and you're welcome to your own opinion on this. just don't be surprised if you're looked down upon for liking or even listening to bands that share your opinion, especially metallica.

Begin rantwhy it's okay to "steal" musiclet's face it; you might as well be sued for singing along w/the radio in ur car because somebody outside the car might hear it. no, wait…that's legal because it's on the radio right? or is it? maybe it's a cd!! omgz sure it's okay to advertise, you can play the music, sing the music, but you can't have the music. some psychologists believe music can help keep one's sanity, like medication. the riaa is taking away your medication!

summary: the only difference between downloading a song and learning to play the song on your guitar is there is no difference. just a bunch of hypocritical money-grubbing morons. pwn! music is free. beeyotch! plz dun sue me.End rant

nobody likes a cocky individual, and geeks are very respectful to one another regarding this issue. always realize that there is someone out there who is smarter than you. once u reach a certain level of education, other geeks will naturally grow more respectful of you, as if they instinctively sense ur a valuable resource.

with respect to the sixth law, thou mayeth challenge the credibility of any self-proclaimed geek, and so mayeth thou invoke the power of the sixth law to deduct geek points from anyone who questions basic geek knowledge.

a lot of people call themselves a hacker when they're not, such as script-kiddies. there is no harm in a friendly duel to see whether or not someone is full of bs (bull sh--). losing geek points, for the record, does not make you more of a geek; it is not a good thing.

viii. thou shalt treat all computers as thou wouldst treat thyself, for thou art the creator of thine own problems.

hey, it is not your computer's fault that you made it run crappy. get with it or get off it. you certainly don't want to trade your every keystroke over to a geek to fix it for you, do you?

this also has to do with the open-source state of mind and the freedom of information. history (and the truth) is as important as much as it can be boring. at archive.org you can actually look up websites that don't exist anymore, kind of like a digital library. it is a very useful geek tool, especially for web developers who forgot to make a backup of their data before neglecting to pay their hosting bill.

x. thou shalt refrain from using thine geek powers for malicious purposes unless upon thyself, within a tolerated environment, or to fend off malicious invasions.

hackers are like jedis, crackers are like the sith: do not fall prey to the dark side. if you have no idea what i'm talking about, go watch the star wars movies.

there are many other laws which you will come to learn over time, but the preceding each deserves special notice.

Last edited by oyle on Sat Jul 22, 2006 2:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

MCP, MCP+I, MCSA, MCSE(NT4/W2K), CCNA, CCA, NWCCC, VH-PIRTS, CEH --------------------"hackers are like jedi, crackers are like the sith: do not fall prey to the dark side".

Negritas reply to tapeworm and the rest of the worlds hacking community

Before I start my own rant, I'd like to make 2 statements about myself;1. I'm a firm believer in the Open Source Initiative, and have been for a long time.2. I like listening to Metallica (sometimes).

Begin rantThe owner of any intellectual property of any kind has the right to license that property under whatever license they like, whether it be copyrighted or copylefted, or whatever. Reading through this link will show that Metallica are the owners of their intellectual property and have chosen to license their material with a copyright, the limitations of which can be seen in that link. Note that they have specifically not chosen to license it with an Open Source Artistic License or any other open source license for that matter or release it into the public domain.

The same idea applies to certain closed source software such as Microsoft Windows. It's Microsofts perogative how to license their intelectual property. In the same way that Bill chose a copyright, Linus chose a GPL copyleft. While I strongly disagree with Microsofts choice to license in that manner and to close their code, and while I beleive that all knowledge should be free, it doesn't give me the right to hack their code and share it on a P2P network. Nor for that matter Metallicas music.

If you don't like the way Microsoft or Metallica do business, then don't do bussiness with them. If you really want to use Windows or listen to Metallica, you could either pay up or you could always try and convince them to change their licensing policies. End rant

Last edited by Negrita on Sat Jul 22, 2006 6:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

CEH, CCSA NG/AI, NNCSS, MCP, MCSA 2003

There are 10 kinds of people, those that understand binary, and those that don't.

Regarding stealing music:For some reason, some people feel it's okay to steal from the rich or people they dislike, but those same people would get livid if you stole from them or did like things to members of their family. I don't get it.

If there's no difference between downloading/listening to a song and playing it on your own guitar, my advice would be to record yourself playing it on your guitar and singing it and listen to that. Then you can avoid the issue altogether. If you don't want to do that, then you obviously DO understand the difference between the two.

when you buy a music CD from a store, doesn't the money you pay for it entitle you to some kind of license? I mean, you can play the CD as many times as you want, and listen to it as many times as you want, and sing along with it as many times as you want, for your own entertainment. But you don't have to keep paying royalties to the artist, do you? However, when a radio station plays that song,or uses it in a commercial for money, they have to pay royalties to the artist, because they're making money off it, right? Also, they're "in the biz", and as part of them being "professionals", I would expect therm to pay royalties, no? If I'm wrong with any of this, someone please correct me.

Besides, the main intent of this thread was the Ten laws of Geek; the thing about stealing music was only a sidebar, put there by the hacker known as Tapeworm; that is HIS view of the music piracy deal.

I think the whole deal with the Ten Laws is MUCH kewler; that's why I posted it.

BTW, a local TV station just played the movie "Hackers" last Saturdayl; I wanted to tape it, but they only had one promo of it in the entire week before they showed it; I didn't get the time of it, or the station. Went through my local tv guide, couldn't find it. Got home from my weekly hacking practice at the local cofee shop, turned on the TV, and there it was in the TV guide, right in front of me. So I caught the last half hour of it. Angeline Jolie did look kewl in a dress.

"Hack the Planet". "Trust your Technolust" Gonna have to rent it or buy it from a video store. Someday, when I get some $$$ rolling in.

I LOVE Metallica. I'm surprised Negrita likes them as well.

Last edited by oyle on Wed Aug 02, 2006 2:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

MCP, MCP+I, MCSA, MCSE(NT4/W2K), CCNA, CCA, NWCCC, VH-PIRTS, CEH --------------------"hackers are like jedi, crackers are like the sith: do not fall prey to the dark side".

The movie hacker was not realistic to say the least. Real hackers retaliated against MGM by defacing the website and some people like to claim it was one of the first “official” hacked websites. I am not sure what they mean by “official.” They defaced it by changing the name to NOT HACKERS! Most Hollywood films are so poorly done when it comes to portraying hacking and the worst I think is the movie “Swordfish.” Oh, maybe I am not being fair. To be honest I have never had a gun stuck to my head while I am trying to break 128 bit encryption and only have a few minutes. Who knows maybe that’s a great motivator, lol?

The best movie I have seen as far as hacking is concerned is “War Games” with Matthew Broderick. It shows how methodical and persistent you have to be to breach security. One scene shows how he spends a tremendous amount of time in the public library trying to dig up personal information on the inventor of the super computer that he trying to hack. He hopes he can guess the password to a possible back door and hopes it might be something like the name of a relative or some other personal info, etc…

IMHO, the best hacker in the world would be Mr. Spock. Think: Spock is consumed by logic; Spock would be excellent in figuring out logic flow of a worm or virus. Not sure of Spock's programming skills, but I'm sure he is no slouch around a compiler.

I agree nabout WarGames; to breach security, you need to do research; it is in fact two of the 5 phases of Hacking: Reconnaisance, Scanning, Gaining Access, Maintaining Access, and Clearing Tracks. It is a logical progession, and the Third Law of Geek specifies that you should learn all you can ON YOUR OWN before you ask for help. RTFM, man.

MCP, MCP+I, MCSA, MCSE(NT4/W2K), CCNA, CCA, NWCCC, VH-PIRTS, CEH --------------------"hackers are like jedi, crackers are like the sith: do not fall prey to the dark side".

Oyle wrote:IMHO, the best hacker in the world would be Mr. Spock. Think: Spock is consumed by logic; Spock would be excellent in figuring out logic flow of a worm or virus. Not sure of Spock's programming skills, but I'm sure he is no slouch around a compiler.

You have to be able to think outside the box sometimes, and someone who's 100% logic won't have that.

CEH, CCSA NG/AI, NNCSS, MCP, MCSA 2003

There are 10 kinds of people, those that understand binary, and those that don't.

I was thinking exactly the same thing that tmartin posted. Spock was always so structured and never really thought outside the box. Capt. Kirk was always the one saving the day with his “outside the box” emotional nature. I remember the show often ended with Kirk giving some long speech to some alien on why that alien couldn’t do the bad things he or they were doing based on some idea of human morality. It was always great to watch Shatner “ham it up” during those overly dramatic scenes!

Kev wrote:Capt. Kirk was always the one saving the day with his “outside the box” emotional nature.

And constantly breaking the hacker commandment to stfu!

Let us now forget Scotty, the true hacker of the enterprise. If fact, he hacks the enterprise itself, overclocking the ship and everything else beside changing the laws of physics. Skill, knowledge and practical experience.